I first saw him at the small restaurant around the corner with cheap steaks and worn out wallpapers. Sitting near the back window, he was smoking and coughing simultaneously. He wore a black ring that glimmered under the fluorescent light. I asked the waitress for his name. "Ali" She replied winking.
Ali. The name sounded simple and modest but the owner looked complex and lethiferous.
I was immediately drawn to him. Was it the long dark curls or was it that he was doing something detrimental to his well being?
"That shit will kill you" I said. With a hoarse chuckle he replied.
"Death comes for us all darling. "
I saw him again, at the gas station. He was smoking, leaning nonchalantly on the wall with no-smoking signal.
"Are you trying to blow us up? " I asked
"Death comes for us all darling. " There was no humor behind his words now.
He scared me and I wondered how deep and dark his mind ran and I wanted to explore him and read every chapter of his life and finger his soul until I touched his core.
I saw him again, at the edge of the rocky cliff. I had never seen him there before. I watched him. He was smoking and his black shirt was torn at the hem and his black pants were tight and his legs seemed so long like I would never get to the end of them. Although his hair blew with the wind effortlessly, his face held so much anger and his look was far away from this world. He looked lost and hurt and I was more drawn to him. It is a comfort to the wretched to have companions in the misery and his forlorness was consoling.
"Are you trying to jump? " I asked. He didn't try to hide the pain in his countenance.
"Death comes for us all, eventually."
"Yes. But why not seek it as well. " I said that as a joke........or maybe I wanted him to see me too. See my desperation for release from this world. See my attempts to confide in another weeping soul.
"I might some day" He whispered lost in thought again.
"I might too. " I whispered.
We met at the small restaurant and ate cheap steak and smoked at the garden, never uttering the turmoil within us.
We met at the gas station and smoked near the wall and ridiculed rich folks with fancy cars.
We stood on the edge of the rocky cliff on Sunday evenings and smoked pot and joked how we will someday jump.
He said he'll probably jump before me and I assured him I'll go before him and he said we'll jump together.
"Best friends jumped to their death"
It will be a poetic death indeed.
But he was braver than me
Or sadder than me
Or luckier than me
Or maybe death simply came for him.
Ali was gone and I still stood
I still breathed.
I wished we confided our sorrows in each other and maybe create our own world and paint the sky a bright colour and pretend everything was okay.
But all he left me with was his black ring that now gleamed under the moonlight.
I stood at the edge of the rocky cliff, inhaled the burnt tobacco, stared at the black ring and contemplated.
Is it quick?
Is it painful?
What is beyond death?
Similar torment or worse?
Is there peace anywhere?
Damn you Ali. We were meant to go poetically but you've forsaken me.
